Sri Lanka’s issue of statelessness centered upon the ‘Hill Tamil’ population, descendants of the Tamil population brought down from India between 1820 and 1840 during British Colonial rule.

 

Although these “Hill Tamils” have been making an invaluable contribution to Sri Lanka’s economy for almost two centuries, the country’s stringent citizenship laws had made it almost impossible for them to be legally recognized as citizens.

 

Without the proper documents, these stateless people could not vote, hold a government job, open a bank account or travel freely.

 

Things improved dramatically when in October 2003, the Sri Lankan Parliament passed the “Grant of Citizenship to Persons of Indian Origin Act” to give immediate citizenship to people of Indian origin who have lived in Sri Lanka since October 1964 and to their descendants.

 

This piece of legislation – a result of extensive advocacy by UNHCR – effectively solved the issue of statelessness among the Hill Tamils in Sri Lanka.

 

However, there was an urgent need to raise awareness about this important piece of legislation. 

 

Therefore, sincce then, UNHCR has conducted two comprehensive awareness raising campaigns, in 2004 and 2007, that included awareness raising workshops for local government entities.

 

UNHCR will continue with its objective of ironing out issues that exist in granting citizenship to the affected populations. Further legislation was passed in Parliament in 2008 and 2009, providing citizenship to a number of people in refugee camps in India and people of ethnic-Chinese origin in Sri Lanka respectively. 

 

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